6th Grade Collaboration

For teaching different slopes (positive, negative, zero, undefined)--this video on "slope dude" hit my kids' funny bones. The narrator is laconic but it works, somehow. Heather
Slope Dude

We talked about math, and seemed to have a math/art connection going. I'm thinking about doing a monthly math-art project. Maybe quarterly is more realistic. Heather
Math/Art Ideas:
--Mod Art (See Freddie)
--3-D Surface Area Sculptures (see Patricia)
--Tessellations
--Name Art (reflected)
--Wheel of Theodorus
--Scale art

Mod Art Math
Mod Art Student Examples

Several people mentioned this school, with it's 1:1 student to laptop ratio: Fisler School in Fullerton


Hello. Here's another idea for art/math that I do every year dealing with rotational symmetry. Students make their own base shape (similar to the tessellation idea but instead of covering the page, it's rotated around the center - interesting patterns come from the overlap). Students work with angles (measuring angles around the circle and they figure out that they can only use factors of 360 in terms of the degree of rotation) and factors when doing the patterns of colors after they've drawn the shapes. I didn't do it this year but last year I had people who come to Open House guess which shapes matched to the picture and they had to figure out the angle of rotation of the shape ( I traced some of the base shapes onto a half sheet of paper and then numbered the pictures). This doesn't take much time and makes a colorful presentation.

Class_2010_006.jpg

Also, here's the math interview project. I didn't do it this year (sadly, no time) but have the previous years. There are a lot of skills that you could connect with this (research, formulating questions, interview manners and techniques, writing profiles, formal thank you letters). The following website has some great videos of how math is used in various careers. Most you need a subscription for but some are free. http://www.thefutureschannel.com/ I got the project from a school district that I downloaded lessons from four or five years back. I emailed them and they said I could use whatever I wanted. Unfortunately, I don't remember the school district anymore. I just tweaked the requirements a bit.

Project When Am I Going to Use This.doc

Have a good summer.

Cheryl

Classical Roots, 6th Grade Collaboration
Since I also use the roots words for spelling this year, I included some of the more commonly used challenge words in the spelling list. I may give bonus points for knowing additional challenge words or do individualized partner spelling tests (pre-test, then each student needs to come up with their own set of words, and partners give each other the actual test) that include the challenge words. I only do roots/spelling every other week.

Visit Princeton Review Vocab Minutes


Ideas for the IPSF APAAS Grant?
iPads
Hi all. Kristen, thanks for the recommendation of the app. I have another one that some people might be interested in looking at. It is called Splashtop and it might be useful in our classrooms. There is a 'whiteboard' option and a ''cam' option. To be honest, I have not yet checkd this out thoroughly, but thought I would share.
Always great talking to all of you!
Patricia